The response of terrestrial vegetation to a globally changing environment is central to predictions of future levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide. The role of tropical forests is critical because they are carbon-dense and highly productive.
Apparently pristine African tropical forests are increasing in tree biomass, making them net absorbers of carbon dioxide. Is this a sign of atmospheric change, or of recovery from past trauma?
The largest extant snakes live in the tropics of South America and southeastAsia where high temperatures facilitate the evolution of large body sizes among air-breathing animals whose body temperatures are dependant on ambient environmental temperatures (poikilothermy.
The Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) transports warm salty surface waters to high latitudes, where they cool, sink and return southwards at depth. Through its attendant meridional heat transport, the AMOC helps maintain a warm northwestern European climate, and acts as a control on the global climate.
The discovery in Colombia of a giant species of fossil snake is news in itself. But a wider, more controversial inference to be drawn is that tropical climate in the past was not buffered from global warming.
Countries are not complying with the UN Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries. It's time some changes were made, say Tony Pitcher, Daniela Kalikoski, Ganapathiraju Pramod and Katherine Short.
